French CIOs share recipe for…

French CIOs share recipe for success of big IT projects

France’s government modernisation unit (Secretariat-General for Government Modernisation, SGMAP) is sharing its list of nine principles to help make large-scale government IT projects a success. The list is the outcome of project evaluations involving CIOs of various French ministries and DINSIC, France’s interministerial ICT unit.

A translation of the nine principles:

Team play, with a recognised project leader;

Resolve problems, instead of building (new) solutions;

Think big, go small (Agile);

Be open and realistic about project goals;

Release early;

Always simplify;

Experiment and innovate;

Share and reuse; and

Exploit open data.

Government IT systems can be unusually complex, SGMAP writes in its announcement, published on 3 April. Combined with government’s multi-faceted decision making process, this creates all sorts of risks for new IT projects. So DINSIC, which drives government modernisation and simplification, is sharing the common principles as a way to control these risks.

“These principles place the resolution of user problems, and responsibility of the project stakeholders at the heart of the process”, SGMAP adds. “They will guide the design and analysis of future projects.”